In April 2009, ESA’s Education Office launched the second call for the ‘Fly Your Thesis! – An Astronaut Experience’ programme. This exciting programme offered an opportunity for teams of university students to fly their experiments in microgravity by participating in a series of parabolic flights on the Airbus A300 Zero-G aircraft.

After the deadline for applications passed on 22 June, ESA's Education Office set up an Evaluation Board composed of experts from ELGRA (European Low Gravity Research Association), the ESA Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Directorate, and ESA's Education Office. Out of the 25 teams that applied for the next phase of the programme, 12 were pre-selected, involving a total of more than 30 European students.

The pre-selected teams

This list summarises the names of the pre-selected teams, the title of their proposed experiment and their university:

The pre-selected teams are now expected to write a scientific and a technical proposal before mid November. Teams will be invited to present their project to the Evaluation Board during a dedicated workshop to be held in December. Up to four teams will be selected to further develop and perform their experiment on an ESA Microgravity Research Campaign that will take place in Bordeaux, France.